Too Wilde to Wed (The Wildes of Lindow Castle, #2)(19)

“She set a trap,” Diana said.

“You were not a trap,” he said. Stubborn man. He would never admit that he was foxed.

“I was not the trap, but the bait. I had the tallest wig in the room. Your sister-in-law, Willa, compared it to the roost in a barn. You couldn’t help but notice me.” She sighed. “At any rate, I thought that if my husband belonged to the gentry, rather than the peerage, he would be more likely to forgive me, once he found out who I really was.”

“Who you really were,” North said slowly. “Do enlighten me, Diana. Who are you?”

“You know what I mean.”

“No, I truly don’t.”

“I’m not decorous or graceful. Remember how you told me, the last time I saw you, that I would be a wonderful duchess?” She smiled ruefully. “My sister would have made an excellent Duchess of Lindow, but my mother was forced to work with me instead. I make missteps all the time. I let slip the wrong things.”

“I don’t remember meeting your sister.”

North was clearly annoyed, but he didn’t seem angry to learn that he had proposed marriage to a mirage. His eyes were fatigued and she didn’t like the smudges under them, but he had smiled twice and almost chuckled—she thought—once.

“I’ll give you an image of what your life would have been like,” she said, ignoring his comment about Rose. “Just imagine that your duchess is on your arm, and you’re greeting Lord Hucklesburry.”

“Who is he?” North inquired.

“I made him up. Lord Hucklesburry and his wife are not happy together.” In the back of her mind she registered that North smelled good, like honey and spice and a clean man.

“What a shame.”

He crossed his legs, leading Diana to notice his thighs. She’d always noticed North’s thighs. She rushed into speech. “You and your wife know all the ignominious details of His Lordship’s passionate love for one of the downstairs maids.”

“No one tells me ignominious details,” North observed.

“They always tell me,” Diana countered, “and I will have related them to you. Now the thing you have to remember is that Lady Hucklesburry was not a virgin upon marriage, so her father added five hundred pounds to her dowry.”

North was perturbed to find that he was on the verge of smiling at the absurd tale Diana was telling. She was so earnest, and so very pretty.

No, she was beautiful. How could he ever have thought she was attractive wearing a wig? This evening she had bundled all that copper hair of hers into a simple chignon, and soft curls were starting to escape and wave around her forehead.

“Yes?” he said, because she seemed to be waiting expectantly.

“Your duchess—the most important lady in the parish—says just the wrong thing.”

“What would that be?” North inquired.

“A reference to the five hundred pounds.”

“I can see that would be inadvisable.”

“Back when Lord Hucklesburry discovered his bride had entertained a lover before they met, he insisted on renegotiating her dowry. So now that he has taken a mistress—downstairs maid or not—he owes his wife five hundred pounds.”

North found his mouth reluctantly curling up. “That’s absurd.”

“Only because you’re a man and not used to treating ladies as equal in value to their husbands.”

“Are you adept at driving a bargain?” he asked, with reluctant fascination.

Her face fell. “I’m terrible with money,” she confided. “You know Mr. Calico, the peddler, don’t you?”

“Certainly.” The visits of Mr. Calico and his bright green wagon had been high points of North’s childhood.

“He scolded me when he was last here because I tried to give him back more than my original guinea in change. I got nervous and confused the coins. It was frightfully humiliating.”

North took another swallow of sherry. He hadn’t known his fiancée from Adam and it was beginning to sink in.

She caught the realization in his face. “Now you understand why I couldn’t have been a duchess—”

He raised his head and cut off another list of her various shortcomings. “Are you telling me that you would have instigated a discussion of betrothal customs with the Hucklesburrys?” North put down his glass. “Or are you really saying that your mother would have added five hundred pounds had I asked her for it?”

He said it gently, because he didn’t mean it to chide. He liked the new Diana, but her secret child was galling. It was one thing to put on fine feathers and play a docile role. That was no worse than when he put on powder and patches in a fruitless attempt to win a fair lady’s heart.

It was another thing to have a child hidden in the country.

“Oh,” she said. The pleasure drained from her face and her smile faltered. “That is not exactly what happened.”

North glanced toward the door, but his aunt was nowhere to be seen. “Perhaps we should have that talk now.”

Her fingers wound together anxiously. He liked it better when she laughed, her fingers fluttering in the air.

“Let’s begin with how you ended up in a cottage. I understand from my aunt that your mother disowned you. I presume you and Mrs. Belgrave are still estranged, since she has not rescued you from your employment.”